


Coming Home

by Rosetylars



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Episode AU: s04e13 Journey's End, Episode AU: s04e17-18 The End of Time, F/M, Pete's World, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-11
Updated: 2014-10-11
Packaged: 2018-02-20 18:18:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,404
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2438342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rosetylars/pseuds/Rosetylars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor is regenerating, but he needs to see Rose one last time. He crosses his timeline to do so, but at what cost?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Doctor Who belongs to the BBC!

He was regenerating. He hated that he knew this body's time was almost over; he had made so many memories in his current regeneration, and could not bear to think that he would be a new man so soon. The main reason he didn't want to change, though, was Rose. Rose, who found him slim and a little bit foxy. Rose, who fit so perfectly in his arms. Rose, who was his best friend, who understood him completely. 

Rose, who was now tucked away in a parallel universe with a meta-crisis version of himself. 

In the last little while that he had in this incarnation, the Doctor visited various companions to say goodbye. He saved the most painful until last. 

He stepped out of the TARDIS, pain coursing through his body, but was instantly distracted from this; because he saw Rose. It was New Year's for her, and she spoke to Jackie for a moment outside the Estate before parting ways, Rose warning her mum not to stay out all night. "Try and stop me!" Jackie quipped, and the Doctor would have smiled if he weren't hurting so. 

Then she noticed him. He groaned as a jolt pain shot through him, which caught Rose's attention. "You alright, mate?"

"Yeah," he affirmed, too quickly to sound sincere. 

She looked much younger than she had the last time he'd seen her. "Too much to drink?"

He gave a non-committal shrug. "Something like that."

"Maybe it's time you went home," she suggested. 

"Yeah." He tried not to think about the irony of their current situation. If only she knew that she was home for him; that if there were one place he wanted to be in the universe, it was by her side. 

"Anyway, happy New Year!" She beamed that beautiful grin at him.

"And you. What year is this?"

"Blimey, how much have you had? 2005, January the first."

He tried not to grimace as another throb of pain coursed through his body, and then her answer clicked in his head. "2005? Tell you what, I bet you're gonna have a really great year."

"Yeah?" She beamed, touched. "See ya!" She nearly skipped home, clearly in high spirits. 

He returned her smile and replayed their meeting in his head. The high of speaking to her again dissipated when he realised that he would never see her again. He thought that being around her then, for just a moment at the beginning of their timeline together, would make him feel at peace with their situation. How could he have been so wrong about himself? Now he could not let her go. He knew he was about to do something completely reckless, but also knew he could not regenerate without doing it. A proper goodbye, whatever the cost. 

He got back into the TARDIS and set the coordinates right in an established event of his own timeline, which he knew he should not do under any circumstances other than for cheap tricks. 

***  
Twenty-seven planets, including Earth, had been stolen from time and space, and taken to the Medusa Cascade. 

Rose was situated in the living room of Donna's home. Wilfred and Sylvia had just moved to another room, looking for a paintball gun to use against the Daleks. 

She had finally crossed the barriers of the parallel universes, and had been delighted when she broke through to her original world at long last. She understood that she had been pulled across the universes to try and prevent the stars going out, but she could only focus on one thing: she was closer to the Doctor than she had been in what felt like an eternity. 

She was desperately trying to tap into the subwave network and make a stronger connection; she could see the others on the laptop screen, but they could not see or hear her. She was so close to the Doctor, but yet so far away it hurt. "Find me," she whispered. 

Then she heard the sound she never thought she would hear again. The unmistakable whooshing and whirring of the TARDIS, right behind her. She glanced at the computer screen in disbelief; the Doctor was unmoved, still talking via the subwave. 

So how was it possible that the Doctor stepped out of the TARDIS, a metre away from her, and in a single moment, enveloped her in the tightest, most emotional hug they had ever shared? "Rose," he breathed. 

"Hello," she drew back to look at him, beaming, unable to contain her giddy happiness at seeing him again. 

"Hello," he smiled back, as per their tradition. His smile turned into a grimace as he doubled over in pain. 

"Doctor! Doctor, what's wrong?" She assisted him to the Nobles' couch. 

"The pain," he grimaced again, squeezing his eyes shut and running his hands through his hair, "should lessen in a moment, body fixing itself and all that. I'm regenerating-"

"No!" She gasped, more tears springing to her eyes. 

"-and I shouldn't be here, Rose. Right now, I'm on the TARDIS, trying to track down the 26 lost planets." He smiled a little at the memory. 

"Yeah, I can see you on the subwave," she managed a wet smile. She clasped his hand when he winced again. "How are you here? What hurt you? If you've come back in time, we can go back to the Vortex and we can wait until we catch up with your timeline, and kill whatever hurt you before it can, yeah?" She was nearly hysterical; she knew that once he was regenerating, that was that. But that didn't stop her from trying. 

"We- we can't. I want to stay so badly, Rose," he choked out, and she knew he was not just talking about staying here at the Noble's house. He wanted to stay in her timeline, with her, in this body. She also knew he couldn't. 

She squeezed his hand and sat next to him on the couch, hugging his side how they had become so accustomed to long ago in the TARDIS, before Canary Wharf, before her time in Pete's World...

"I... I'm dying, Rose. Like last time, I'm going to... change. And I couldn't... I wanted to see you again. Needed to," he added, murmuring. "That me, on the screen, doesn't know I'm here. Can't know. I'm a little older than he is, and I'm breaking nearly all of the rules of time and space just being here. So I'm running out of time." He had to explain himself, and quickly. The pain had started to die down which meant regeneration was near. "It started- and I shouldn't even be telling you this, because of the timelines- when Wilf got stuck in a radiation chamber. I couldn't leave him, and he couldn't get out..." he paused. "He wasn't harmed, I absorbed it all in the end." 

Rose knew there was a lot of detail missed in his recount, but she also knew his seconds were limited. "And that-" her voice broke, "that killed you? You knew it would, but you still did? Why wasn't I there to save you? Oh, God, am I dead?" 

He pulled her closer and kissed her temple. "You're safe. Happy, I hope. Again, I shouldn't even say this, but... In a little while, tonight, you and that version of me," he pointed to the figures still chattering away on the subwave, "are going to be reunited. But just before we reach each other, I'll get shot by a Dalek... When I start regenerating, I'll use enough of the regenerative energy to heal myself, but I'll siphon the rest off into my handy spare hand. This sort of creates a meta-crisis me, long story... But he'll commit genocide, killing all of the Daleks, and at the end of everything, we're back at Bad Wolf Bay on Pete's World, and you and he start living your lives there, together. He's human, has my memories..."

Rose had been silent throughout his recount, but it had shocked her to the core. "And you came back here to say goodbye, before you go off into your TARDIS alone, and die?" It shattered her heart to get out the words, but she knew that was his intention. 

"I had to come because I needed to tell you once before I died that-"

The hand that he had been using to stroke up and down her arm began to glow golden. 

"No!" She cried. "This isn't happening. Doctor, please, you can't go! Don't do this, please-"

It broke his heart, too, when he staggered the few steps to the TARDIS. Her heart stopped. Before she knew what she was doing, she had lurched in behind him. "Doctor, you can't do this alone," she sobbed. 

He knew she shouldn't be there. But he couldn't resist the urge, just this once, in his last moment; he'd broken so many rules of time today that one more broken wouldn't be a big difference, surely. 

He pulled her close to him and kissed her with all of the passion and emotion he had never had the chance to voice. She kissed him back with equal measure, her sorrow seeping through and into him. For a shining moment in his lifetimes, he and Rose had been all that mattered. She had helped him through his anguish following the Time War, she had come into his life, tipped it upside-down, and he had loved every second of it. Back when he had grabbed her hand and whispered, 'Run!' he had no clue that she would become the most important person in the universe to him. She had been a constant companion for him, always by his side, holding his hand when he needed her. He cared so deeply for her that he ached just to think about how everything had ended for them. 

But he knew he had only seconds left, so he drew back. "Rose Tyler," he said, as his body glowed golden, "I love you." 

The golden flame of regeneration engulfed him, and his words engulfed her. She cried as he changed, remembering the horror she had felt the last time this happened. Little did she know then that the leather-clad Doctor that she loved so dearly would become this one, who would be even more painful to lose. "I love you, too."

The memories they had created together flashed before her eyes and were gone in an instant as the flames died down. She rushed closer to the new Doctor. "Hello," she smiled, tears not ceasing. "You look good."

"Rose Tyler. Thank you for staying with me just then," the blue-eyed Doctor smiled sincerely. In attempt to make her laugh, he said, "How's the hair?" 

She smiled a little, but was still in too much shock to laugh just yet. She ran a hand through it. "Not as good. But still, lovely. I'm more worried about the chin." She traced his jawline with her thumb.

He tried to feign offence, but that idea vanished in a heartsbeat as Rose closed the gap between them to kiss him again. 

"Doctor," she said seriously as they broke apart again, "I will love you always. This body will take some getting used to, but you're you, and I love you."

"I love you, too. And it will break me to do this, but I can't be here. You're needed out there, to save the world. Enjoy our last few moments together in your timeline. You watch us save the universe together, Rose, because that's what we do." His gorgeous new voice cracked. "I have to leave you, and I shouldn't have done this at all because I never want to leave you, ever." 

"Do I have to stand by and watch while you get shot by a Dalek, Doctor? I can't physically stand there and not do anything-"

His hearts shattered once again as he realised what he had to do. "Rose, I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry. I love you."

"No," she sobbed, when she realised as well. "No! Please don't, I love you-"

The Doctor brought his new hands up to her temples, and buried the memory of these moments they had just shared. He thought of the moment that he did this to Donna, but that was different; her memories had to be erased completely. At least for Rose, they could resurface, in her timeline, after he regenerated. 

She slumped against him, and he kissed her forehead for the last time. He took her back out of the TARDIS and into the Nobles' living room, settling her on the couch. She would come to in a moment, and he had to be gone by then, so he whispered, "Goodbye, Rose Tyler. Thank you for everything." 

And it was probably just his imagination, but he swore he heard her whisper, "You'll look great with a bow-tie." Shaking sense back into himself, he forced himself back into his ship, setting the coordinates for the Vortex. 

***  
The meta-crisis Doctor woke with a start. Rose had just jolted upright in bed. It was the middle of the night, and so the Doctor was very, very concerned. "Are you-?"

"Oh, my God, no. No, it can't be, no!" She cried. Her shoulders shook as she sobbed, and he was aghast. Suddenly, a searing pain shot through his head, and he understood.

He drew her towards him, and she enveloped him in the tightest hug she had ever given. Her tears soaked right through the shoulder of his t-shirt. They both knew what this meant, for her memories to resurface and for him to feel such a blinding, detaching pain. 

He had regenerated in the other universe. 

The meta-crisis Doctor knew very little about Rose's memory of this moment until now; only that someone had tampered with her mind a little at that point in her timeline. He could sense those things, but hadn't wanted to point it out to her, knowing the memory would return in its own time. He had already deduced that it was the other Doctor who had to bury something in her head, and had clearly done so as a consequence of crossing his own timeline. But now, understanding that the moment was right before his regeneration, he realised that the other Doctor could not have ended his life in any other way.

He kissed Rose thoroughly until her tears were all gone.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Pretty please leave some feedback, any constructive criticism or comments in general would be greatly appreciated :)


End file.
